Yikes, what a waste. You could eliminate the western flyover by simply having a slip ramp off County Road E / Vadnais Blvd. You could likely eliminate the eastern flyover by using a loop on the NW corner of the interchange to access SB Rice, sort of a half parclo design. Bonus: Two roundabouts/intersections instead of three.

IMO, pros to tolls:
- Reduce congestion
- Free up general revenue (ideally for transit improvements)
- Better tie funding to usage
- Make up some of projected decline in gas tax revenue

Cons to tolls:
- Complicated to implement
- Are a form of regressive tax
- Political powder keg in the burbs

Whether it's tolls, a mileage charge, or something else entirely, ideally we'd be able to entirely separate the gas tax, which should mainly be capturing pollution externalities, from road funding. Electric cars still incur about the same road maintenance costs per-mile.

Rice St and 694 interchange design
This might have been out for a while but it was just brought to my attention. They plan to construct Rice and 694 similar to Rice and 36, but with roundabouts instead of signals.

My thoughts:
- the current status with multiple lights on both ends is terrible.
- I don't like the flyover exit/entrance setup. Seems excessive to construct 3 bridges instead of 1.
- The shifted roadway on the south side (N Owasso) will reduce visibility and take out the Vadnais Inn (bar). I wonder how much that business is being compensated?
- will the large open space to the south of 694 and west of Rice be sold to a developer?
- did they leave space between 694 and the soundwall for that little jog in the exit ramp? "D'Oh!"
- how will semi traffic move through this area? The roundabouts seem too close for a semi to weave through the area.
- it REALLY is too bad this wasn't worked on as part of the just competed 694 project.

Other thoughts?

I'll give them a pass on the three-bridge design - I'm sure they could spout some logical reasoning behind it. But, what the hell is up with the Rice / Owasso intersection?!? They're moving it half a block north to, umm, use more land and pavement? Why not just put the roundabout at the current intersection?

The request is for the passage of a resolution defining the City’s support for the following list of projects, in priority order based on benefit for Minneapolis residents, workers, businesses, freight operators, and visitors:

I'm honestly surprised you're opposed to these projects. Without doing a ton of research, they all appear to be pretty obvious and necessary projects that will take pressure off of surface streets. Most of them are projects that should have been done decades ago. What am I missing?

IIRC, the I-94 MnPass plan is for a mix of new and converted lanes. The segment between Dowling and 4th St will be converted, while the segment north of Dowling is mostly new lanes. I'm surprised about the 252 MnPass lane, but it makes sense because MnDot is proceeding with the freeway upgrade.

The 35W North MnPass lanes are needed to connect with the 35W lanes that will open soon between Roseville and Blaine and the proposed 36 MnPass lanes.

The 94/280 reconstruction is needed to move the entrance/exits to the right side so that the MnPass lane can be built on the left side.

The Hwy 62 auxiliary lanes are likely a recommendation from the 62/494 study that hasn't been published yet. Seems like the roadway is pretty tight between Portland and Cedar, but they could probably just close 62nd St and Cul-de-sac the streets that the houses are on.

I think that it should be a top priority that if any work is done at the Hwy 36 & 120 interchange that it INCLUDES on/off ramps (tight diamond interchange) as to not cut off another entrance to downtown North St Paul and the rest of the city.